Uttar Pradesh: BLO dies by suicide, family alleges work pressure linked to voter roll revision

A booth-level officer has allegedly died by suicide in Uttar Pradesh’s Sitapur district, PTI reported on Friday. His family has alleged that he took the step due to work pressure related to the special intensive revision of the electoral rolls in the state.

The booth-level officer, identified as 30-year-old Umesh, lived in Ataria town and was employed as an instructor at Dariyapur pre-secondary school, said Rakesh Kumar Gupta, an inspector in charge of the Ataria police station.

Umesh was a resident of the Rampur Kala police station area, he added.

Gupta said that Umesh was alone in his room when he allegedly killed himself.

“After the door remained unopened for a long time, police were informed,” PTI quoted the inspector as saying. “As the iron door was locked from inside, it was cut open, following which Umesh was found hanging from a noose.”

Umesh’s family members told the news agency that he had been assigned duties as a booth-level officer during the revision exercise and was under pressure due to the increased workload.

The police said that the matter was being investigated and that a case would be registered after a preliminary probe.

The Election Commission is conducting the revision of the electoral rolls in 12 states and Union Territories, including Uttar Pradesh. Booth-level officers began distributing enumeration forms on November 4.

Overall, around 3.6 crore electors in the 11 states and Union Territories have been deleted so far in the exercise.

The draft electoral roll for Uttar Pradesh is scheduled to be published on December 31.

The final electoral rolls for all states and Union territories where the exercise is underway are to be published on February 14.

The task of preparing voter lists before elections is typically assigned to primary school teachers and anganwadi or health care workers, who are employed by state governments. They are required to go door-to-door and check the identities of new voters and verify the details of those who have died or permanently moved out of an area.

In the Election Commission’s parlance, they are called booth-level officers. Each booth-level officer is responsible for maintaining the voter list for one polling booth, which can sometimes have as many as 1,500 registered voters.

At least nine suicides and two deaths due to stroke have been reported due to alleged work pressure in West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Kerala and Rajasthan amid the revision of electoral rolls.

In Bihar, where the revision was completed ahead of the Assembly polls in November, at least 47 lakh voters were excluded from the final electoral roll published on September 30.

Concerns had been raised after the announcement in Bihar that the exercise could remove eligible voters from the roll. Several petitioners also moved the Supreme Court against it.

Also read: I struggled to fill SIR forms. BLOs have it much worse